Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy
commonplace.online
commonplace.online
In the UK in 2023 it is still possible to join the military when you're 16 years old, and you can start your application when 5 months before that. No other country in Europe recruits child soldiers, only the UK.
That'll show the French!
Also environment for brainwashing
(edit: spelling)
We don't let those people drink alcohol for a reason.
The TLDR is that in the UK, age limits are quite case-by-case, and tend to range from 16 to 21, although in more niche cases can range from 11 (the age you can open a bank account) to 30 (the age of suffrage for women in the 1918 Representation of the people act).
You can smoke cigarettes at any age, but you are not allowed to buy them until you are 18.
If you are caught smoking by a uniformed police officer or park keeper in a public place when under 16, he or she can take away your tobacco and cigarette papers.
s.7 Children and Young Persons Act 1933
But we do get to pick and choose which privileges we extend to minors, and when. A 16 year old has no legal right to consume alcohol, but that only means that we can ban them from doing so, not that we have to.
That is absurd claim. We in fact do get to chery pick scenarios in which someone is mature enough for X and not yet mature enough for Y. That isbjust simple logic, it is irrational to demand that different situations are treated the same.
Patriot act, taxes and terroris have literally zero to do with anything.
"Drinks like a soldier" doesn't have the same ring to it.
Are these 16 year old actually fighting? Or are they placed in support roles, i.e. it's basically a job, but under the structure of the military?
But once they turn 18 they can be ordered into combat based on a decision they made when they were still a child.
Recruits can leave up to the end of their first six months of service. After that they are committed until they are 22.
That is an uncomfortable situation, but it's not worse than countries that conscript 18-year-olds, who don't even get to make a decision at all.
It also gives everyone the same incentive to not start shit (even though few ppl are in position to instigate a war) because it could be you and your family that’s sent to fight it.
However, when you’re actually fighting, you want to trust the person fighting next to you. And if that person was conscripted and didn’t want to ever be there, that’d cause a lot of issues.
10 years old understand joining army means joining army. And still don't get to make those decisions.
Age cutoffs are an arbitrary and shitty substitute for a test of competency, prone to both high false negative and high false positive rates.
Because teenagers are easy to manipulate and control, don’t value their life, and think with their dick.
I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say by sheer coincidence you're in that 25-30 year old male demographic, and in about 5 years you'll be of the opinion that actually its 30-35 year olds who are clearly the strongest, toughest, most mature and capable fighting force and all them 25-30s are a bunch of idiots that don't value life and think with their dick.
Nobody claims that 40 yeat old men are peal of physical perfection.
Car accident rates have an obvious confounding factor. Of course the people with +5 years experience driving have a lower accident rate than the people who just got their license. Skill comes from practice. If you pushed the legal age for a drivers license to 25, the 25-30 year old demographic would probably suck at it and get into accidents in their first ever years on the road. There's no way around the fact that driving judgement has to be learned at some point, and is not just bestowed by the maturity fairy when you hit the big three ooh.
Ability and willingness to follow orders is probably paramount, along with reflexes, and some common sense and logical abilities. And then of course, proficiency in your role.
18 year olds are typically right out of school, so learning new roles comes easy. They've also typically come right out of a situation in life where the expectation of following commands is pretty fresh, even if they perhaps weren't the best at following through (the military has ways to fix that).
And perhaps most importantly, for folks that are staying in for the career, or at least longer than the minimum level of service, joining at 18 means that you've had time to get training and experience so when you DO hit that "prime muscle strength" time of life, you're a well honed killing machine. Waiting til you've hit that point means you'll be going in cold, and get suboptimal results.
As I understand it, it's basically a legal historical quirk at this point; it almost never happens -- they're not qualified otherwise. Essentially all roles require secondary education and many want a college degree these days.
It's no surprise that there were lots of older boys in the Union army because the lack of prospects in the cities were obvious even then.
1. The Confederates planned to fight on the defensive. They weren't invading the Union.
2. They were more prepared for military service and had better leadership. Which wasn't wrong at the start.
3. They would win simply because of the strength of their belief. If they never surrendered, they would win because the Union didn't the same resolve.
4. Cotton exports would cause European countries to side with them against the Union.
5. They didn't really expect the Union to wage total war.
> How did the confederacy think they could win given that difference?
When your country gets invaded, you don't grab your abacas, you grab your gun.
The confederacy was not being invaded when they chose to start the war.
...
Finally, Lincoln acted. On March 29, he had sent a note to his secretary of war: “I desire than an expedition, to move by sea, be got ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next.” Despite many rumors of evacuation, Fort Sumter apparently was to be reinforced, a move expressly forbidden by Southern authorities after months of patient and unsatisfying negotiations regarding the evacuation of the fort. US Naval Captain Gustavus Fox, commanding the reinforcement expedition, was instructed to enter Charleston Harbor and send a boatload of provisions to Fort Sumter and to do no more, unless he was stopped or fired upon. In either of those cases, he was to try to force a passage, with the help of US Navy ships beyond the harbor, and supply the fort not only with provisions but also with troops.
If you read the article I linked, Anderson took the fort on his own accord. Did you want me to paste the entire article in here or something? What's extremely selective about it? I linked the article.
>including the exclusion of what that ruse was required
Got any references or anything to explain what you mean?
>food shortage that necessitated resupply
Anderson took the fort and held it for three months. I'm certain he needed resupply. Did you think the CSA was gonna give him food after he took their fort?
The CSA fired at the Star of the West to prevent resupply of Anderson. The CSA also chose to fire at the fort even though they knew that Anderson would surrender due to lack of food within days.
The CSA repeatedly chose violence to take a fort that a they couldn't get through negotiation and thus started a very bloody war. Perhaps that war was inevitable and it clearly stemmed from hostile choices on both sides, but the decision to officially start that war by the CSA was preemptive and absolutely not a response to any invasion.
You can't just hand wave that away because the CSA were "the bad guys," you have to be able to view both sides of it to fully understand the war, the causes and the affects, not play favorites, and especially not view it through modern eyes. There were no laws banning secession and it was deemed illegal by the SCOTUS ex-post facto.
Do you think if the Southern states thought they wouldn't be able to leave the Union when they joined in 1788 they ever would have joined in the first place? Doubtful.
>There is no indication that Anderson had any desire to "invade" the south, but rather the opposite.
Sure, but that act has obvious consequences. The first battle of the Civil War was Bull Run/Manassas. It was fought in Virginia because the Union troops crossed into the CSA territory to take the capitol. That's an invasion, an invasion that was the consequence of firing on Sumter, which was a consequence of Anderson taking it and Lincoln reinforcing it. Had cooler heads prevailed, we might not have had to lose 700k+ people.
Although the Civil War officially began when Confederate troops shelled Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the fighting didn’t commence in earnest until the Battle of Bull Run, fought months later in Virginia, just 25 miles from Washington D.C. Under public pressure to end the war in 90 days, President Lincoln had pushed the cautious Gen. McDowell to embark on a campaign to capture the Confederate capital in Richmond, but McDowell’s troops were stopped at Bull Run by Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s Rebel forces. The Federals retreated to Washington, where the Lincoln administration retooled for a war that would be waged at great human and financial cost
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/bull-ru...
The union didn't take it, they already possessed it. This is also besides the point because it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't have be similar concerns about Anderson remaining in Moultrie or that there wouldn't have been issues with the numerous other coastal forts in the south that were posses the by the US army.
> It was considered an act of war and the CSA retaliated by shelling it for 3 days after they refused to leave
That is inaccurate. Anderson refused to leave multiple times without the refusal being taken as an "act of war". The last (4th?) time Anderson actually didn't refuse to leave, but laid out the conditions under which he would leave. Those conditions were found unacceptable so the CSA started a war.
> The first battle of the Civil War was Bull Run/Manassas. It was fought in Virginia because the Union troops crossed into the CSA territory to take the capitol.
While that could be considered the first battle (depending on your definition of "battle"), there were a number of escalating skirmishes leading up to Bull Run.
> That's an invasion, an invasion that was the consequence of firing on Sumter, which was a consequence of Anderson taking it and Lincoln reinforcing it. Had cooler heads prevailed, we might not have had to lose 700k+ people.
That's an invasion that happened AFTER the CSA started the war. Thus you simply can't say that the choice to start the war was because of that invasion.
There is an argument that the CSA started the war because they feared blockades, but again, that fear lead to preemptive action by the CSA, not responsive action.
> There were no laws banning secession and it was deemed illegal by the SCOTUS ex-post facto.
It was not "ex-post facto" as no new law was enacted. The SCOTUS interpreted the Consitution and decided that the states had agreed to a "perpetual" union
As the case Texas Vs White makes clear:
> "It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"
> Do you think if the Southern states thought they wouldn't be able to leave the Union when they joined in 1788 they ever would have joined in the first place?
That is not at all clear, because they did clearly agree to join a "perpetual union" when they signed the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. My understanding is that the supreme court decided it is legal for states to leave the union, but they cannot do it unilaterally.
You may, of course, disagree with this decision by the Supreme Court and with its interpretation of constitutional law. That does not mean that any new "ex-post facto" law was passed.
When the United States Constitution replaced the Articles, nothing in it expressly stated that the Union is perpetual. Even after the Civil War, which had been fought by the U.S. to prevent eleven of the southern slave states from leaving the Union, some still questioned whether any such inviolability survived after the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles. This uncertainty also stems from the fact that the Constitution was not ratified unanimously before going into effect, as required by the Articles (two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, had not ratified when George Washington was sworn in as the first U.S. president). The United States Supreme Court ruled on the issue in the 1869 Texas v. White case.[3] In that case, the court ruled that the drafters intended the perpetuity of the Union to survive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union
The constitution wasn't explicit and the SCOTUS hadn't ruled on it yet. It wasn't certain and could be argued either way, particularly for North Carolina. The fact that the union was perpetual was confirmed in 1869 by the SCOTUS, after secession and the war, thus ex-post-facto.
Great discussion, I want to respond to your other points later.
The constitution explicitly says that it's aim is to perfect the (perpetual) union that was established in the articles. The SCOTUS viewed that as clear evidence that the framers intended the union to be indissoluble.
> after secession and the war, thus ex-post-facto.
Ex-post-facto means a law that makes an act illegal that was previously legal.
In this case, that is not what happened. The legality of unilateral succession wasn't fully clear until the supreme court ruled. There was no new law created, just an official confirmation that Lincoln's position was indeed what the framers had intended and what the law had been all along.
You are trying to change the meaning of "ex-post-facto" to one that would apply to pretty much every SCOTUS decision ever and render the term meaningless.
The confederate states could have taken a case to the supreme court to challenge Lincoln's position. Perhaps the precedent would have been different if they had.
The confederate states could also have waited for Lincoln to invade or even blockade before resorting to violence.
Trying to paint the confederate states as a victim is simply inaccurate. They chose the path of violence and the entire country paid the price for their desire to maintain slavery. An institution that was not only highly immoral, but also one that was doomed and that would have put them at odds with the rest of the world within half a century.
You put parenthesis around perpetual because it wasn't explicit. The SCOTUS confirm that in 1868, after the fact. At the time it could have been easily argued that it was omitted from the constitution for a reason, one being that the southern states wouldn't have signed it.
>Ex-post-facto means a law that makes an act illegal that was previously legal.
>In this case, that is not what happened. The legality of unilateral succession wasn't fully clear until the supreme court ruled. There was no new law created, just an official confirmation that Lincoln's position was indeed what the framers had intended and what the law had been all along.
But it was. Lincoln deemed secession was illegal and sent troops to capture Richmond as a police/military act in response to secession. The legality of secession at the time was not clear, as in not confirmed by the SCOTUS, therefore not explicitly illegal. In the US, actions are default legal unless explicitly deemed otherwise by law and there was no law or ruling, particularly an explicit one, outside the AoC which weren't the law of the land. The SCOTUS confirmed it was illegal to secede after the fact, justifying Lincoln's prior police/military actions, which would have themselves been illegal had secession been confirmed as legal.
Ask yourself this, why were no CSA politicians or military personnel ever brought up on charges of treason?
>Trying to paint the confederate states as a victim is simply inaccurate.
I'm not trying to paint the CSA as a victim, I'm just discussing history, establishing cause and effect, chain of events, and most importantly trying to answer the "why?" Again you are looking at history through modern eyes and trying to apply modern sensibilities to it. Victim is such an overused word today. We were having a good discussion, why would you throw that angle in it?
>They chose the path of violence and the entire country paid the price for their desire to maintain slavery.
Slavery was legal in the southern states and many of the northern states at the time of secession. Of course had they been allowed to secede, which wasn't confirmed to be illegal at the time, no one would have died.
>An institution that was not only highly immoral
It was certainly immoral and it was the US' "original sin," that we are still paying for. Of course the British are the ones who introduced it to the colonies, so we inherited that sin when we rebelled and 700K+ people died trying to atone for that sin.
>but also one that was doomed and that would have put them at odds with the rest of the world within half a century.
I'm not so confident in that, though I would want it to be true. There are still major countries where slavery exists today. I think has the CSA successfully seceded, they would either be a third rate country, or would have been invaded by now. They certainly would have missed the Industrial Revolution.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
Ok, the text is getting narrow indicating this is getting to be a long thread. Thanks for the discussion, I'll let you have the last word.
That does not appear to be the case. Federalists were pretty clear that there would be no right to secession under the constitution. This is why anti-federalists in New York pushed to add language to New York's ratification that stipulated it's right to withdraw. James Madison argued that "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever" and New York ended up ratifying the constitution without that language.
So your argument here hinges on the assertion that despite their clear statements to the contrary, the federalists left ambiguity about secession in the constitution to win over anti-federalists. I don't see any evidence to back this up.
Indeed, if the Southern states though they had the right to unilaterally secede under the constitution, they would have taken a case to the supreme court. They did not and when a case did make it to the supreme court afterwards, it was confirmed.
> In the US, actions are default legal unless explicitly deemed otherwise by law and there was no law or ruling, particularly an explicit one
That isn't how it works. There are general laws that cover a wide range of acts. When a court rules that a specific act falls under a law, the defendant doesn't get off because they committed the act before the ruling.
> Ask yourself this, why were no CSA politicians or military personnel ever brought up on charges of treason?
Because Andrew Johnson pardoned them to promote reconciliation and healing. Perhaps we would have been better of if they had been prosecuted for treason and we had traded short term animosity for justice and long term clarity.
> Again you are looking at history through modern eyes and trying to apply modern sensibilities to it.
How so? There was widespread condemnation of slavery at the time. What "modern" views am I imposing?
> Victim is such an overused word today. We were having a good discussion, why would you throw that angle in it?
That is precisly the angle that the effort to frame the civil war as a "war of nothern aggression" takes. You are repeating many of those talking points and factual mistakes so it seems highly relevant.
> There are still major countries where slavery exists today.
The "modern slavery" described in that article is substantially different from what was practiced in the South and there has been significant, if insufficient, international pressure put on those countries to change.
> Of course had they been allowed to secede, which wasn't confirmed to be illegal at the time, no one would have died.
What ifs are hard. There was far more to resolve about the secession than the possession of fort Sumter. Since the South had already demonstrated their willingness to use violence to get their way when they weren't satisfied with negotiations, it is hard to see how a path to peace could have existed.
If the southern states hadn't resorted to violence, would Lincoln have had the support to prosecute the war? If the southern states had tried to establish the legality of that secession they could have won and Lincoln would have had even less support.
The southern states seceded premptively without a legal basis because they lost an election and then chose to premptively start the violence and initiate a war.
The southern leaders who made those choices deserve full responsibility for that path.
The north had few choices. Secession movements were not limited to the South and establishing the precent of allowing them would have lead to the dissolution of the nation. This view of secession was shared by numerous presidents before Lincoln, including James Buchanan, who was a supporter of states rights regarding slavery.
> In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy [here referring to the existing Union] is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.
So Lincoln was faced with either going to war to prevent secession or letting the US dissolve and this choice was readily clear to all involved.
Perhaps it would have been more moral to chose to save the 700k lives than to save the nation. I guess the answer to that question depends on how much of a patriot your are.
I personally think that intra state wars would have eventually broken out that would have cost more lives, but again, what ifs are hard.
Marching into a country and killing hundreds of thousands of men isn't an invasion? What do you call it where you're from?
This is why many southerners know it as "The War of Northern Aggression."
That's called spin/branding.
The initial acts of violence and aggression were taken by the southern states. The southern states could have chosen a legal or political solution. Instead the CSA decided to unilaterally succeed and then used violence to take a fort that they were unsuccessful in negotiating for.
The slaves were seen as a threat that could start the rebellion of some kind.
* They had more military experience and a stronger military tradition
* They were more motivated
* There were a not-insignificant number of Northerners who weren't particularly in favor of fighting a war against slavery (which, despite the "states' rights" commentators, was the real cause of the war)
* They expected recognition from the British government due to their supposed dependence of southern cotton
I just finished the book _Battle Cry of Freedom_ a couple of weeks ago. It's a fantastic and very readable single-volume history of the war and the ~20 years leading up to it, and I think every American should read it for a clear understanding of why exactly the US Civil War happened
> Total U.S. military deaths in battle and from other causes were 407,316. The breakout by service is as follows: Army 318,274 (234,874 battle, 83,400 nonbattle),[292] Navy 62,614,[292] Marine Corps 24,511,[292] and the Coast Guard 1,917.[570][320]
I don't know what the denominator looks like for those various forces, but 5x as many Army deaths as Navy seems to corroborate your grandfather's intuition.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#endnot...
Edit: From [2] it seems the Army was a bit over 2x the size of the Navy, so still about 2x the rate of deaths.
[2] https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/us-involvement-in-wwii-how...
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the biggest naval battle in history. If he was in the pacific I am sure he seen some crazy things.